Division I Men

Lehigh Runs Away Late in 17-6 Win Over Lafayette

from Press Release

Dan Taylor had a career-high
seven goals as Lehigh finished its Patriot League regular season at
6-2 in league play. (Justin Lafleur/Lehigh Athletics)

EASTON, Pa. - Leading 5-3 in the second
quarter, the #17/19 Lehigh men's lacrosse team went on an 11-0 run
over the next 26:07 to break the game wide open as the Mountain
Hawks cruised to a 17-6 win over Lafayette on Friday evening at
Fisher Field. Lehigh beat the Leopards for a fifth straight time
and 13th time in its last 14 tries as the Mountain Hawks head into
the Patriot League Tournament with an 11-4 record and 6-2 league
mark. Junior Dan Taylor continued his stellar play with a
career-high seven goals including six straight goals to turn an 8-3
lead into a 14-3 advantage.

"Dan did a nice job. Our offense really goes as Dan goes," said
Lehigh head coachKevin Cassese. "I had a conversation with him
before the game tonight and told him I wanted him to be super
aggressive and really set the tone for us on the offensive end. He
did a good job of that and the other guys followed suit."

Taylor has now reached 60 points on the season behind 39 goals
and 21 assists. The two-time defending Patriot League Offensive
Player of the Week tied a career high with eight points as well. He
has now posted 21 points over his last three games (16 goals, five
assists).

Sophomore Reid Weber added three goals, all in the game's first
16:36, for his third-career hat trick. Junior Kurtis Kaunas scored
twice while five others tallied a single goal.

"I thought it was a six-man unit on offense today," said Taylor.
"I thought we shot the ball really well and were working hard off
the ground and moving the ball well, so I'm really excited about
today."

The Lehigh defense impressed as junior goalie Matt Poillon
stopped six-of-ten shots in just under 45 minutes of action. The
Mountain Hawks emptied their bench in the fourth quarter, including
the first-career action for freshmen goaltenders Donny Stires
andGarrett Miers who each made a save.

Weber got the scoring started at 13:44 of the first quarter,
making a move from behind the goal and beating Lafayette netminder
Jake Hyatt to make it 1-0. The Leopards tied the score with an
extra man goal just over one minute later, but three straight
Mountain Hawk goals, beginning with Taylor's first of the evening,
made it 4-1 with 5:41 left in the opening stanza.

Lafayette scored two of the next three to pull within 5-3, but
that's when the Mountain Hawks took over. Lehigh went on to score
11 straight goals over the next 26:07 beginning with an extra man
goal from senior Cody Newton. Taylor added his natural hat trick
(times two) as the run ended with the first-career goal from junior
Sam Lawrence and Kaunas' second of the evening to make it 16-3 at
1:30 of the third quarter.

From there, several Lehigh players saw action as sophomore Chris
Appell scored his second goal of the season in the fourth quarter
and sophomore Steve Brodeur, Stires and Miers all played between
the pipes and each made at least one save. For the game, the
Mountain Hawk goalies stopped 11-of-17 shots sent their way.
Lehigh's defense has allowed seven goals or fewer in seven of the
last eight games.

"I thought our guys fouled a little bit too much early in the
game and were a little bit overaggressive," said Cassese. "You can
tend to get that in a Lehigh-Lafayette game. I thought they settled
in nicely and all four of our goalies did a nice job. Defensively,
once we settled in, we did a better job at that end."

Senior Ty Souders led the defense with a groundball and two
caused turnovers while short-stick defensive midfielders Lawrence
and senior Jimmy Cahill each posted two caused turnovers as
well.

Final shots were 42-33 in favor of Lehigh while the Leopards
held a 29-25 edge in groundballs. Senior Ryan Buttenbaum won 11 of
his 19 faceoffs while scooping six groundballs.

The third-seeded Mountain Hawks will now open the Patriot League
Tournament on Tuesday when they host #3 seed Navy. Opening faceoff
is set for 7 p.m. at the Ulrich Sports Complex. The winner will
advance to Friday's semifinals (hosted by Loyola) against #2 seed
Army.

"We still haven't played our best lacrosse game," said Cassese.
"We're hoping to do that in the next week here. We'll have to do
that because we're going to see a Navy team who knows us very well.
We know them very well. We hope to move on, but we'll have to focus
on them first and foremost. We'll have to play really well on
Tuesday to win that game."